NWAA plans supercluster

England’s North West Aerospace Alliance (NWAA), which represents 750 member companies and “stakeholders” and generates an estimated $12 million-plus a year, plans to develop its aerospace supply chain excellence (ASCE) program into a “close-coupled ‘supercluster’ built on a knowledge-based economy.” Under ASCE, by next March some $16 million funding is predicted to have provided 1,000 man-days’ training to 700 people in an effort to make 45 companies “world competitive” by 2010.

Now, under a plan to be implemented in about 15 months’ time, NWAA wants ASCE to involve the region’s further- and higher-education institutions and research and scientific bodies and to provide shared services such as logistics, “aggregated procurement” and finance.